While an art such as literature seeks, through words, the Word,
Photography reveals the light within the Light: this is the premise of Andrei
Baciu’s visual expression endeavours. Obsessively fascinated by the power with
which the photographical art bears testimony that the world is ”good from the
viewpoint of its purpose, beautiful as making, complex from the perspective of
its existence and spiritual through its very materiality” (Horia Bernea, Romanian
painter and thinker), Andrei does his best to acknowledge the assertion in the
quote above.

Many thanks for taking the time to participate to this interview and
answering my questions, Andrei!To
start, can you briefly tell us about yourself, your hobbies and other projects you
are involved in?

Thank you too, very much, for
your interest in my work, Marius! I feel honored by this interview.

I am born in 1983 and I live
in Măgurele, Prahova county, Romania, working as a high-school literature
teacher. I photograph mainly on a 100-kilometer radius, on the hilly
surroundings of my natal village, where I keep discovering new subjects,
including landscapes, people, bridges and horses.

One of the projects I am
currently working on is an album about the greatest Romanian poet, Mihai
Eminescu. Also, there is a fine art e-book, named ”In a Train Station. A
Twelve-Step Meditation” and containing photos and text, which I have recently
published on LiterNet.ro, one of the most important Romanian cultural sites.

Which are your most important experiences so far that have influenced
your steps in photography?

I am not sure I can point out
some distinct experiences, in the sense that everything that I live,
photographically and extra-photographically, influences my photography, as it
does my life. Yet, there is one moment I can evoke, that is one of my first
trips, made actually close to my home, on the hill nearby. Down, in the
village, in that November day, everything was covered in fog, but when I got to
the top of the hill, I suddenly found myself above this vapourous blanket that
covered everything. Only the sun was to be seen, bathing the whole scenery in
its golden light. I will never forget this. :)

What first attracted you to photography and why? What photography genre
do you prefer?

As a philologist, I feel
somewhat disappointed in words. Or, more precisely, not in words as such, but
in the way they are currently used. We ignore their profound, divine meaning
and power and contaminate them all too often with our mundane paradigms and
interests. On the other hand, photography is a lot purer and calls things by
their true(er) name, in the sense that it has the ability – as amazing, as it
is gentle – to help us perceive existence at a deeper, cleaner level. As God
meant it to be, I dare say.

As for the preferred genres, I
am open to most of them, since they all have the fascinating ability to reveal
something about the world, both about the one perceivable with the physical
eyes and about the one perceivable with the inner, spiritual eyes.

Can you please shortly describe your overall photographic vision?My view is that, as I wrote on
my site, there is no border between photography and poetry. Photography is,
just like poetry, full of lyricism. Somewhere, high up, they meet, they mix,
they mingle. Photogralysm.

You are also an appreciated books author and you have a PhD in
literature. How do photography and literature interact and complement each
other for you and how did both influence your photographic vision?

In a mysterious, and yet so
natural way, I think. The reason I am fascinated by photography is the same for
literature: they both can whisper to us the greatest questions and answers of
Life. The most important impact literature has had on my photography is that it
has taught me to see beyond the empirical – to use it metaphorically in order
to convey higher meanings, more precisely. This is (one of) the key(s), I am
sure.

Two of your photographic projects fascinate me the most: “The Life and
Happenings around Blejoi Bridge” and “Winterly Haiku”. Can you please tell us
was the idea behind each of them and what got you so interested in these
projects?

I think of ”The Life and
Happenings around Blejoi Bridge” as an extended allegory on existence, I might
say. The very fact that a bridge connects two different pieces of land, two
different realms, is a symbol of the dual reality of life: the seen and the
unseen.

Regarding ”Winterly Haiku”,
maybe the most succinct way to characterize it would be that it is an exercise
in silence. In the midst of our current busy, all too talkative lives, ”a photo may
well fulfill its goal by simply suggesting that, be it from time to time,
moving closer to the gentle fields of silence represents a higher wisdom”, as I wrote in the introduction of the project.

Regarding the latter part of
your question, i. e. the starting of these projects, I can say they sort of
came by themselves. All I did was to simply open myself to the experience of
being there and, little by little, things became more and more coherent.

What is more important from your perspective: the mood, the story behind
your images, the message transmitted, the composition or the technical
perfection?

The emotion they convey. J Why? Because my fundamental endeavour is to pass on
the emotion I myself felt when the moment that generated the photo had been
gifted to me.

Obviously, from another
viewpoint, all the elements in the enumeration have their particular role. And
they all have to play it right.

What is your relationship to the locations where you are shooting?

The more you love a person or
a place, the more you know about them (since you allow them to be free, not
burdening them with your own preconceptions, expectations and desires). The
more you know about them, the better you can photograph them. I try to abide by
this common sense principle.

Do you have specific techniques when shooting your photos you would like
to share and recommend?

Sincerely put, I don’t. The
technique is only the inherent tool that serves as a means of expressing
emotions and ideas. So, when these are clarified in the photographer’s mind and
heart, the adequate technique should naturally, instinctually, come to mind.

I open my raw files in Canon’s Digital
Photo Professional and, after a few general adjustments, I import the resulted
file in Photoshop. Here, I finalize the general adjustments and go on with the
local ones, using various tools, including masks and Nik Efex Viveza. Actually, I use most of the excellent Nik Efex
plug-ins, mainly Viveza and Silver Efex. Generally, I spend about 90 minutes
with the processing of a single photo and,for a long time, I’ve had the impression that this time is required by
my various adjustments. Actually, I use most of this time in order to connect
with the image and to understand it at the deepest level as possible. It is
only when I understand its inner workings that I can do the appropriate
adjustments.

What is your most important advice for the beginners in photography and
what is the minimal equipment set you would recommend?

I too consider myself a
beginner. And I try to keep it that way, because I am only an amateur
photographer. I strive to be, at least, in the etymological sense of the word
”amateur”, which, as we know, comes from the Latin ”to love”. Photography is,
indeed, a way of being, of understanding the exterior world and myself. More
than anything, photography is, really, a blessing and (I like to think that) I
give my best to live up to it.

So, these being said, as far
as I can give advice to anyone, be they photographers or not, my word of advice
is to always be an amateur, in the sense outlined above. It is where all of it
starts – honestly.

As to the minimal equipment,
nowadays, when photographic technique has progressed so much, I would say that
any camera with any lens is just perfect to enter this fantastic realm of photography.
The not-so-obscure-trick, yet, is to keep it simple and not to forget that the
equipment is just a tool.

Who are your favorite photographers and, more importantly, how their
work influenced your own work? Is there any specific photo would you like to
mention that has inspired you and why?

I have many-many (many!)
favourite photographers, both classic and contemporary. The first that comes to
mind is André Kertész. Most of his photos inspire me. Why? Well, maybe because
it is what great art does – connects souls and permeates them with the
ineffable Light.

What was the first image you had published on 1x? Can you remember the
way you felt when it was published?

It was this, if I am not
mistaken: https://1x.com/photo/18010. I
was very glad to see it published, of course, especially that I hadn’t met a
curated site before. An extraordinary idea indeed, so much the more that today
billions and billions of pictures flood us from everywhere.

Usually the photographers have their own favorite piece of work, part of
their portfolio. Can you please shortly present your favorite photo and explain
why it is special to you?

I must say that all my photos
are my favorites, so to speak, each in its own way, since they all originate in
a deep emotion that made me press the shutter. Yet, for the sake of the game, I
will pick one of them, namely a photo from “The Life and Happenings around
Blejoi Bridge” series: https://1x.com/photo/1241424/.

One of the most intense
experiences I lived - not only from this series, but also from my whole
(photographer) life -, took place the very first time I went photographing the
bridge. I had been there for no more than 25 minutes, when, on the road beneath
the railroad bridge, an old man appeared, with his cane. Almost simultaneously,
more and more black birds - crows, to be more exact - started showing up. At a
certain point, the old man turned away from me, facing the fog in the distance,
as if ready to disappear into it. That precise moment, the sky literally filled
with birds. The epiphanic convergence of all these elements, alongside the
setting itself, simply overwhelmed me. What had been initially a prosaic scene
transformed, for just a second, into a profound allegory (of life itself, if
you ask me), which I was not only witnessing, but, at a deeper level, I was
really living, with all my being. (That was also the moment I knew that the general
approach of my project had to be a symbolical one.)

Andrei, we are about to conclude our interview and here is my final question:
are there any specific directions that you would like to take your photography
in the future or any specific goals that you wish to achieve?

I am always reluctant when
asked this question J. I don’t like to talk about my goals, and this not in
order to affect preciousness, but simply because, you know, our plans prove
often times more difficult to complete than expected and, once you build up a
certain expectation from the audience, it is quite delicate and difficult to
nullify it. Therefore, I prefer to discuss only what I have already (or almost)
finished and to keep my ongoing projects to myself.

From another point of view, I
do have a specific goal I wish to achieve – in the sense I referenced above, to
remain an amateur photographer. For good.